Things to do

Your Halloween Agenda 2018

Your Halloween Agenda 2018 | WoooOOOooo

Halloween is at its most terrifying…

…when you don’t have anywhere to go.

Gives us the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. Mostly because the alternative is being stuck inside, pretending to be out in order to avoid answering the door to the hordes of adorably dressed up, impish sugar-junkies looking for a fix. So it’s a good thing that we’ve lined up the very best things London has to offer this Halloween weekend…

The Festival of the Dead started as a small shindig in London’s Troxy before blowing up into a nation-wide Halloween stunner, and it’s hardly difficult to see why. It’s an absolutely huge show, telling the story of one man’s decent into hell via the medium of gigantic, Range Rover-sized mechanical skulls, acrobats, DJs, circus performers, and alcohol. The crowd is very much part of the story, and there’ll be professional face-painters on hand to help you blend in.

Clearly, Lewis Carroll enjoyed a drink or two. And Rumpus Room – despite being on the top floor of the Southbank’s Mondrian London with its own roof terrace – will be found at the end of a very deep rabbit hole this Halloween. It’s all thanks to their Malice In Wonderland party, which will transform the sleek cocktail joint into a macabre version of the classic Victorian fantasy, complete with acts “ranging from the gruesome to the titillating to the downright scandalous”…

Taking place over 2 days this Halloween weekend, Night Tales are going to be decorating their already impressive space with ghoulish party decorations, crackling fire pits and fancy dressed people. Plus both Skream and Pillow Talk will be playing. And given that the space is already East London’s largest covered terrace, with cocktail bars, restaurants, and live music… it’s probably going to be pretty good.

The Candlelight Club is ordinarily completely candlelit. Hence the name. Only on the Halloween weekend, those candles will be housed in pumpkins, there will be fortune telling, mind-reading, spooky burlesque, a string quartet playing horror movie themes, and more to join them…

Boasting a fair few contortionist acts, the LCC is pretty twisted on a regular day. So for Hallowe’en they’re going all out, filling a 1920s ballroom with spooky themed acts, a no doubt terrifying dinner, Trick or Treat cocktails, and an entranceway that’s filled with such scream-inducing surprises that you can actually get warding wristbands if you think you can’t hack it.

Karaoke is fun. Karaoke with hundreds of other people simultaneously singing power ballads at the top of their lungs is closer to a religious experience. And this Ultimate Power event is going to have all the MeatLoaf, Bonnie Tyler, and Bon Jovi you can shake a cassette at. Bring your air instruments and throat sweets.

The book club are staking a lot on their Halloween event: they’re going to be holding a very immersive screening of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Things will kick off with a life drawing class (standard stuff, obviously) before moving onto a screening of two classic eps (Hush & Once More with Feeling) with a few Buffy-styled cocktails, and finally finishing with an afterparty fuelled by ’90s dance music until 3am.

Circus, who are famous for providing gymnastic acts above the tables while you eat will be unleashing a whole new kind of acro-bat this Halloween. Details about the show are being kept under wraps, but your hostess for the evening will be Miss Polly Rae (who also hosts ‘Soho Burlesque Club’ at the Hippodrome) and she’ll be overseeing a night of “sheer death-defying insanity”. And like most Circus shows, it sounds intense …while not being in tents.

Answering all your prayers are LCD, who bring their signature brand of remixed disco to Tottenham Hale’s suitably spooky Styx, which they’ll be dressing up as a creepy church for an all-night after(life) party. Expect hidden rooms, a graveyard bar, and plenty of gospel-laced 70s music.

Although it is sadly not the coolest political movement of all time, the Dark Circus Party is actually something slightly better – a massively grand, atmospheric, eye-poppingly cool Halloween party run by the folks at Bourne and Hollingsworth, and set inside a ‘haunted’ big top tent. It’ll feature trapeze acts, sideshow oddities, fire breathing, sword swallowing, snake charmers, lion tamers, ring masters, cocktails, and probably you.

POP Brixton doesn’t always have live bands, but ironically they do when they’re celebrating the Day of the Dead. Which they’ll be doing this Halloween weekend, with an “explosion of colours and joy” that will apparently also include DJs, mystic performers, street food & a lot of mezcal.

This Halloween, the people at the Discount Suit Company aim to ply you with alcohol, then take you down the backstreets of Whitechapel & Spitalfields, with absolutely no ulterior motive at all… just a tour of the sites frequented by the world’s most notorious serial killer.

Oriole, sister bar to Nightjar, has its Halloween costume ready. On the evening of the 31st, it’s going to be dressing up as a spookily gothic take on turn-of-the-last-century Paris (aka the ‘Fin de siècle’). And we all know what that means: cabaret stars, burlesque queens, performances from seasoned showmen, plenty of live music, delicious bon bouches, a free welcome cocktail, and even a drink to takeaway at the end of the evening.

Curse of The Red Kiss is an original, site-specific theatrical experience that was designed expressly to be performed in Jason Atherton’s crown jewel: Berner’s Tavern. It’s going to be performed just once this Halloween, and you’ll see the story gradually unravel (it involves a centuries-old urban legend concerning the death of a singer, who’s visage you’ll see in the very plasterwork of the room you’re in) while you dine on a five course meal, then hit an afterparty until 3am…

Supperclub supremos The Dinner Ladies have turned into sinner ladies for Halloween, unleashing seven (hopefully not deadly) sin-themed courses on an intimate group of 35 guests. Expect strange-looking ingredients, creepy cocktails, and live entertainment to finish off the meal…

The folks at The Cutty Sark are inviting you to enjoy something on the rocks: a Halloween whisky tasting. You’ll get to sink half a dozen different varietals in a guided sip-session under the golden hull of the iconic boat. And there’ll be cheese & biscuits throughout the evening, too.

Details: 31st October | King William Walk, SE10 9HT | £40–

A Danse Macabre

“A baroque carnival of lust and disgust” is how the Last Tuesday Society advertise their annual Halloween Ball. And given the spookily macabre nature of the LTS, Halloween is kind of their Christmas, so expect them to deliver on that promise. This year, it’s all going down in the Scala, which they’re filling with burlesque artists, live Gypsy Punk & Electro-Swing bands, and a chance to be “spanked in The Marquis de Sade’s Balcony Dungeon”. Which sounds nice.

Easily Masterchef’s most successful winner, Thomasina Miers will be personally hosting a five-course Day of the Dead feast at the Soho branch of Wahaca (as well as one the following night in Manchester). The space will be transformed with special DotD decor including floral installations & face-painters (to make sure you look the part, too), and dishes will include a trout & passion fruit ceviche, as well as a traditional slow-cooked rabbit & partridge picadillo. There’ll even be a mezcal & tequila tasting to cap it all off.

Starting this weekend, you can go straight to hell. Because the people at Funicular Productions are going to take you there by train. It’s all part of their latest immersive, locomotive-based supperclub experience, and they’ve recruited Masterchef: The Professionals finalist Louisa Ellis to feed you onboard… READ MORE